What are the most effective strategies for building a philanthropic organization that is resilient to change?

Resilience is NOT about mission; it’s about vision. Vision is where you’re headed, the difference you want to make, the end goal. Vision is what “good" would look like when you're done - your “why.” Therefore vision is a constant. Values are also a constant - the ethical, moral, and perhaps even spiritual lines you will not cross as you walk the path to get to the vision. Mission, OTOH, is all about what you will do to achieve the vision. To be resilient, sometimes that “doing” must change. Pivoting can be a big part of resilience. So resilience is about being super clear about the constants – your vision and your values - and then being flexible about everything else.

The first step to creating resilience is defining the impact you want to make. Your goal is to articulate a great dream that you back with a sound plan. People will always support an achievable dream if they are shown how. Those same people will stick with you if you regularly show them how their participation is helping to make those dreams come true.

Philanthropy is strengthened when nonprofits collaborate with organizations in the same space. It prevents donations from being spread thin across system, supporting infrastructure that might be best centralized. Talk to nonprofit "competitors" for philanthropic dollars to see where there's overlap and where there might be synergy to bring greater impact to the cause.

Partnerships increase human, social, and economic capital. They leverage resources, reduce costs, raise visibility, and attract dollars. They help organizations increase their impact in the community. You need partners who are both similar to and different from you.

Evolution is the key to sustainability. History is filled with cautionary tales of organizations that chose to “stay the course” in the face of a shifting landscape. Change can be scary, but I've also found it the most satisfying part of my career. It’s good to know best practices, but it’s a lot more fun to develop them. Years ago, I found this quote from Lee Iacocca: “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we don’t just sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” Countless times it has encouraged me to go out and try something different. We can always learn from our mistakes and build upon them for future success.

Resiliency requires nonprofits to engage with and gather input from all parts of their philanthropic ecosystem. That means not just internal, but external too. What are volunteers seeing? Local government administrators and politicians? Beneficiaries of the services? The feedback should be collected, codified and analyzed to develop powerful decision-making tools for change. And then go back again to your stakeholders to see whether that change is felt and improves impact.

Nonprofits that consider risk management in a strategic way are most likely to thrive in times of stress. They’ve prioritized their prevention and risk abatement and have the analytics to monitor how risks are affecting impact. They have early warning signals and act before it’s too late. And it’s these nonprofits that secure larger grants, larger major gifts and larger government contracts.